bear - ingn.1 the manner in which one comports oneself; 2 the act, power, or time of bringing forth offspring or fruit; 3 a machine part in which another part turns [a journal ~]; 4pl. comprehension of one's position, environment, or situation; 5 the act of moving while supporting the weight of something [the ~ of the cross].

27 February 2015

The third sermon in The Sermons of St. Francis de Sales for Lent is entitled "Faith," and is a meditation on the Gospel passage about the Canaanite woman, Matt. 15:21-28.

After this, Jesus left those parts and withdrew into the neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon.

And here a woman, a Chanaanite by birth, who came from that country, cried aloud, "Have pity on me, Lord, thou son of David. My daughter is cruelly troubled by an evil spirit."

He gave her no word in answer; but his disciples came to him and pleaded with him; "Rid us of her, they said, she is following us with her cries."

And he answered, "My errand is only to the lost sheep that are of the house of Israel."

Then the woman came up and said, falling at his feet, "Lord, help me."

He answered, "It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs."

"Ah yes, Lord," she said; "the dogs feed on the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table."

And at that Jesus answered her, "Woman, for this great faith of thine, let thy will be granted." And from that hour her daughter was cured.

The theme of the sermon is: How can anyone's faith be "greater" than another's? Francis tries to show this by using the Canaanite woman as an example of "great faith."

St. Francis first begins by defining faith as an interaction among the understanding and the will and the truth: by it the will chooses to adhere the understanding to truth:

[Faith] is nothing else but an adhesion of our understanding to these truths which it finds both beautiful and good.

Consequently, it comes to believe them, and the will comes to love them. For just as goodness is the object of the will, beauty is that of the understanding...for beauty is never without truth, nor truth without beauty.

Now the truths of faith, being true indeed, are loved because of the beauty... I say loved, for although the will has goodness for the direct object of its love, nevertheless when the beauty of revealed truths is represented to it by the understanding, it also discovers goodness there, and loves this... In order to have great faith, the understanding must perceive the beauty of this faith.

...The understanding, feeling itself drawn or captivated by [beauty], communicates this truth to the will, which accordingly loves it for the goodness and beauty it recognizes there.

Finally, the love that these two powers have for revealed truths prompts the person to forsake everything in order to believe them and embrace them.

All this helps to explain how faith can be said to be nothing else but an adhesion of the understanding and will to divine truths.

I like this because it reminds us that faith is an act of cooperation between the understanding (the power of reason) and the will. Once a truth is known to be true, the will chooses to "adhere" to it despite the confusing, unreliable signals we may get from (for example) emotions, rationalizations we may make, other people. The starting point of that faith is a point of understanding, of being convinced of a truth. It does not substitute for the understanding, the being convinced. It chooses to adhere, to remember.

So how can one person's faith be "greater?"

With reference to its object, faith cannot be greater for some truths than for others.

I think the idea here is that while it's possible to be more convinced of one truth than of another truth, in the sense that some truths may be supported by more or stronger evidence; faith is the act of holding on to the correct degree of certainty (whatever it might be).

Nor can [faith] be less with regard to the number of truths to be believed. For we must all believe the very same thing, both as to the object of faith as well as to the number of truths. All are equal in this, because everyone must believe all the truths of faith... I must believe as much as you and you as much as I, and all other Christians similarly. He who does not believe all these mysteries is not Catholic...

Thus, when Our Lord said, "Oh woman, great is your faith," it was not because the Canaanite woman believed more than we believe. It was, rather, that many things made her faith more excellent.

And the idea here is that a Catholic is by definition one who adheres to all the truths of faith (or, I suppose, all the truths he or she is aware of); so you don't get praised for greater faith because you believe more of the truths than somebody else. That might make you less heretical, but not a Catholic of "greater faith."

So what Francis is saying is:

It is true that there is only one faith which all Christians must have. Nevertheless, not everyone has it in the same degree of perfection.

The remainder of the sermon uses the Canaanite woman to expound on how one's faith may be more perfect than another's. Here's how this plays out:

Faith accompanied by charity may be living, while faith separated from charity may be dying or dead.

Faith may be sluggish and dormant, if it is lax in contemplation, or it may be vigilant.

Vigilant faith is accompanied by virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance.

The faith that the Canaanite woman possesses is an attentive faith.

Attentive faith is accompanied by virtues of confidence, perseverance, patience, and humility.

Some quotes:

On a living faith united to charity:

[C]harity cannot really be in the soul which has faith without performing works either little or great. It must either produce or perish, because it cannot exist without doing good works.... We know by the works which charity performs whether faith is dead or dyng. When it produces no good works we conclude that it is dead, and when they are few and sluggish, that it is dying. But just as there is a dead faith, there must also be a living one which is its opposite.... Joined and united with charity and vivified by it, it is strong, firm, and constant...

Now when we say that this faith is great, we certainly do not imply that it is something like fourteen or fifteen units long... It is great because of the good works it performs and also because of the many virtues which accompany it, acting like a queen who labors for the defense and preservation of divine truths. That these virtues obey her demonstrates her excellence and greatness--just as kings are not great only when they have many provinces and numerous subjects, but when, together with this, they have subjects who love them... But if, despite all their wealth, their vassals pay no attention to their orders nor to their laws, we would not say that they are great kings, but rather very petty ones. So charity united to faith is not only followed by all the virtues, but as a queen she commands them, and all obey and fight for her and according to her will. From this results the multitude of good works of a living faith.

[I]t is the opposite of vigilant faith. It is lax in applying itself to the consideration of the mysteries of our Religion... it does not penetrate revealed truths at all. It sees them, to be sure, and knows them... it is not asleep, but it is drowsy or dozing.

...Persons who have a dull and dreamy mind have their eyes open, appear very thoughtful... but they are really oblivious to what is going on. It is the same with those whose faith is dormant: they believe all the mysteries in general, but ask them what they understand about them and they know nothing.

Meditation and consideration of what one knows, on the contrary, makes faith vigilant:

But vigilant faith... penetrates and understands revealed truths quickly and with great depth and subtlety of perception. It is active and diligent in seeking and embracing those things which can increase and strengthen it. It watches and perceives from afar all its enemies....

This vigilant faith is accompanied by the four cardinal virtues: fortitude, prudence, justice, and temperance....

Faith employs prudence to acquire whatever can strengthen and increase it. It is not satisfied with believing all the truths necessary for salvation...[but] is ever on the watch to discover new ones and ...penetrate them.

"Attentiveness" is a quality of faith that the Canaanite woman had, and here St. Francis brings in some imagery that I for one will carry with me always back to this Gospel:

[N]otice this pagan woman standing among His listeners, carefully observing to see when the Saviour, about whom she had heard so many wonderful things, would pass by. She was as attentive as a dog carefully watching its prey, lest it escape...

[T]he Canaanite woman, who had been watching to seize her prey, came to present her request to Him, crying out: Lord, Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is cruelly troubled by the devil.

Reflect a bit on this woman's great faith. She asks... only that He have pity on her, and believes... that will be sufficient... Her faith would not have been so great had she not been so attentive to what she had heard...and to what she had concluded about Him.

We normally observe this among the ordinary people of the world. In a gathering where good... subjects are being discussed, an avaricious man will indeed hear what is said, but when it is over just ask him the subject of the conversation, and he will not be able to relate a word of it. Why? Because he was not attentive... his attention was on his treasure.

...Oh woman! how great is your faith, not only because of the attentiveness with which you hear and believe what they say of Our Lord, but also because of the attentiveness with which you pray to him and present your request.

This is fantastic because, as we all know, this is sort of a controversial Gospel story; it's the one in which Jesus can be interpreted as calling this woman a "dog" compared to the "children" to which He is sent to bring food. And she replies that the dogs receive the crumbs that fall from the table: witty, to be sure, and Jesus appreciates the reply -- not for its wit but for its faith, or perhaps its wit and its faith are one and the same.

Here, St. Francis has taken a quality of dogs -- attentiveness -- that is desired by the humans who care for and live with them -- and ascribed it to the woman as a great virtue. We are used to taking the "dog" comment as necessarily a slam.

But -- especially given that the woman, more or less, asks in reply, "Consider the dog --"

Yes, let's consider the dog. What are dogs? They are not the same as children, and that otherness is exactly what Jesus is pointing to with his words addressed to her first. And yet -- they live in the master's household, they serve the master, they are fed by the good master and loved by him, they are faithful, and ready for the slightest word. And for the slightest crumb -- have you ever had dinner with a dog in the room? That's "attentive!"

The woman was not only humble, hoping for a crumb. Jesus tossed her one. And she snapped it up with her reply, because she was ready, alert, attentive.

St. Francis uses the woman's smart remark to tell us that in one aspect of our faith we might want to emulate dogs, sitting by the table watching for that crumb to fall, ready to dash at it.

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There's quite a lot more here, because St. Francis goes on to explain that, because her faith is attentive, the woman possesses confidence, perseverance, patience, and humility. He turns that into a lesson of persevering in repetitive life and repetitive prayer that I particularly like. He is talking about religious sisters, whose life may be beautiful but is certainly monotonous after a fashion; the same, though, is true about family life in some ways.

[P]erseverance in always doing the same thing... is a martyrdom... for the fancies of the human spirit and all self-will are continually martyred there...

Is it not great perseverance for peasants, who ordinarily have only bread, water, and cheese for their nourishment? Nevertheless, they do not die any sooner but rather are in better health than the fastidious, for whom one does not know what food is right. They need so many cooks, so many different kinds of preparations! Then, present it to them and see what happens: "Oh," they say, "take that away from me, it is not good'; or "That will make me ill," and suchlike nonsense. But in religion we do not make use of such artifice. We eat what is given us! And this is a martyrdom, as is the constant following of the same exercises.

Let us persevere in prayer at all times.

I would like to quote more, but I'm already two days late with this reflection...

20 February 2015

Moving on to the second in my collection of sermons by St. Francis de Sales for Lent: "Temptation."

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The basic thrust of this sermon is that temptation is an inevitable part of the chosen life of the Christian, and that Jesus taught us that much when he went into the desert (Mt 4:1, Mk 1:12, Lk 4:1). The main points are as follows:

I. "[A]lthough no one can be exempt from temptation, still no one should seek it or go of his own accord to the place where it may be found."

That is why the Evangelist says that Our Lord was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted; it was not then by His choice (I am speaking with regard to his human nature) that He went to the place of temptation, but He was led by the obedience He owed to His heavenly Father....

If we are led by the Spirit of God to the place of temptation, we should not fear, but should be assured that He will render us victorious... Our enemy is like a chained dog; if we do not approach, it will do us no harm.

II. "Let us... consider a little the weapons which Our Lord made use of to repulse the devil that came to tempt him in the desert. They were none other, my dear friends, than those the Psalmist speaks of in [Psalm 91]." Sufficient is our belief in God:

O how divinely well armed with truth was Our Lord... for He was truth itself. This truth of which the Psalmist speaks is nothing other than faith. Whoever is armed with faith need fear nothing... for what can harm him who says Credo, "I believe" in God who is...our Father Almighty? ...By using the words of Holy Scripture our dear Master overcame all the temptations the enemy presented to Him.

...Our Divine Master could not have faith, since he possessed... a perfect knowledge of the truths which faith teaches us; however He wished to make use of this virtue in order to repel the enemy, for no other reason, my dear friends, than to teach all that we have to do. Do not then seek for other arms nor other weapons in order to refuse consent to a temptation except to say "I believe." And what do you believe? "In God" my "Father Almighty."

III. Psalm 91 refers to terrors of the night, of which St. Francis says there are three: cowardly and slothful fear, the natural fear that children have, and the fear that the weak have. It also refers to arrows, to a threatening "business" that takes place in the night, and "the spirit which comes to tempt us in broad daylight." The remainder of the sermon is a listing of these attacks, so that we might recognize them and thereby withstand them. Here are some highlights:

On the fear of cowards and slothful souls:

Fear is the first temptation which the enemy presents to those who have resolved to serve God, for as soon as they are shown what perfection requires of them, they think, "Alas, I shall never be able to do it..." He will strengthen you and give you the grace to persevere...

Do not be astonished, therefore, and do not do as the slothful, who are troubled when they wake at night by the fear that daylight will come very soon when they will have to work. The slothful and cowardly ...amuse themselves in thinking... more about future difficulties than what they have to do at present.

Of course. If you were to contemplate what you have to do at present, you would be forced to admit that it is time to do something other than contemplate.

"Oh," they say, "if I devote myself to the service of God, it will be necessary for me to work so much in order to resist the temptations which will attack me." You are quite right, for you will not be exempt from them... To whom do you wish, I pray, that the devil should present his temptations if not to those who despise them?

...Rise from your bed, indolent one... Rise... from your cowardice, and keep clearly before your mind this infallible truth: all must be tempted.

Yup. You're not as special as you think.

On the fear experienced by a "child" in the spiritual life:

As you are aware, children are very much afraid when they are out of their mother's arms...They feel that nothing can harm them provided they are holding her hand.

Hold His hand and do not be frightened... Consider how St. Peter [walking on the water]suddenly began to fear and at the same time to sink down, and cried out, "Lord, save me!" ... Let us do the same...

There are some who, feigning courage, go someplace alone at night. When they hear a little stone fall from the ceiling, or just hear a mouse running, they cry out... Often persons who have just come into God's service are like these people. They affect fearlessness... This is what happened to poor St. Peter.... The more Our Lord expounded on the greatness of his afflictions, the more did St. Peter passionately insist that he would do as much. But how well he realized how completely he had been deceived when he found himself, at the time of his Saviour's Passion, so fainthearted...

Thus it happens to those young souls who testify to so much ardor in their conversion... But just wait a little. For if they hear a mouse, by which I mean if the consolation and sentiments of devotion which they have had until then happen to be withdrawn and if some little temptation attacks them... they begin to fear.

"Oh, how miserable... I am in the Lord's service where I thought I would live in peace, and yet all different sorts of temptations have come... I do not have so much as an hour of real peace."

There is no place where temptation does not have access... It is precisely because Our Divine Saviour is [in the desert] that temptation is found there too...

"But I am so imperfect," you say. I believe it, indeed! Therefore do not hope to be able to live without committing imperfections, seeing that this is impossible while you are in this life. It is enough that you do not love them and that they do not remain in your heart. That being so... do not trouble yourself about the perfection you so much desire. It will be enough if you have it in dying.

On the "arrow that flies by day:"

These arrows are the vain hopes and expectations on which those feed who aspire to perfection. We find those who hope for nothing so much as to be Mother Teresa [of Avila] very soon... That is good; but tell me, how long do you give yourself for this task? "Three months," you reply... they are very often discouraged in the pursuit of the real virtue which leads to sanctity.

On the spirit which comes to tempt us in broad daylight -- the temptation to detest all that might distract us from the solitary enjoyment of God:

This spirit... is that which attacks us in the fair noontide of interior consolations... at the time when the divine Sun of Justice ..fills us with so agreeable a warmth and light... that we die to almost everything else...

[I]t cannot be appreciated enough by this lover who is always languishing for His love. She does not want anyone to come and trouble her in her repose which, in the end, terminates only in the vain complacency she takes in it. For she admires the goodness and sweetness of God, but in herself, and not in God. To her, solitude is very desirable at this time so as to enjoy the Divine Presence without any distractions. Yet she does not really desire it for the glory of God, but only for the satisfaction which she herself experiences in receiving these sweet caresses and holy delights issuing from this well-beloved Heart of the Saviour.

Now that is something to chew on, for those of us who live in the bustle of family life.

My dear friends, we shall never be capable of keeping company with him in His consolations, if we are not sharers of His labors and sufferings. He fasted forty days, but the angels brought him something to eat only at the end of thattime.

These forty days, as we said just now, symbolize the life of the Christian, of each one of us. Let us then desire these consolations only at the end of our lives, and let us busy ourselves in steadfast resistance to the frontal attacks of our enemies. For whether we desire it or not we shall be tempted....

Let us fear neither the temptation nor the tempter, for if we make use of the shield of faith and the armor of truth, they will have no power whatsoever of us. Let us no longer fear the three terrors of the night. And let us not entertain the vain hope of being or wishing to be saints in three months!

As I finish this reflection, it strikes me that it isn't so much about temptations themselves, but about the fear and discouragement that comes from temptation. Temptations are particular things; he suffers from one kind, while she is not bothered at all by what troubles him, but is continually assailed by a different one; the man in this vocation is often tempted one way, the man in a different vocation is tempted another way. What tempts me does not tempt you, and vice versa.

But while our particular temptations may differ, the fact that we are tempted does not; and so we're all subject in one way or another to the struggle with them. So this advice, though it was addressed to a group of Visitation sisters in 1622, still applies to us now no matter our state in life.

19 February 2015

This isn't from my book of Lenten sermons, but from Introduction to the Devout Life.

In the chapter on "Mortification," the saint first encourages fasting "a little" more than the minimum:

If you are able to fast you would do well to fast a little more often than the Church demands, for besides elevating the spirit, subduing the flesh, practising virtue and acquiring greater merit, this serves to maintain our mastery over greediness and to subject our bodily appetities to the law of the spirit... Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays are the days on which the early Christians most often practised abstinence, so you may choose some of these days as fast days... according to your confessor's advice.

But then the rest of the chapter is a caution against overdoing it. In particular:

...[W]ant of moderation in fasting, taking the discipline, wearing a hair shirt and so on, renders the best years of many people useless in the service of charity...

The flesh is subdued both by fasting and by work; if your work is necessary and useful to God's glory I would rather you suffered the labour than the fasting, as more in accordance with the mind of the church, for our duty to God and to neighbor dispenses us even from fasts of obligation. One has the hardship of fasting, the other of serving the sick, visiting those in prison, hearing confessions, preaching, helping those in need, praying and so on; all of which are more valuable than fasting, for they not only subdue the body, but also bear excellent fruit. In general, it is better to over-strengthen than over-weaken the body; we can always curb it when necessary, we cannot always restore it when we want to.

I read this not so much as a caution against fasting -- because excessive fasting is rarely a problem today, although excessive scrupulosity and overthinking about fasting often is, if my FB feed is any indication. The saint does recommend fasting "a little more often" than required, after all, "if you are able to fast."

No, I read this more as an encouragement to consider the ordinary performance of one's duties as an opportunity for fasting, a chance to "rend your heart, not your garments" and do one's daily work in a spirit of mortification.

Those of us whose primary work is the care and education of children will have no problem seeing that our work is "necessary and useful to God's glory." We know that such work is inherently dignified.

Those of us who work for a paycheck probably have a variety of experiences. Some occupations are obviously ordered as a whole to the good of the human person, even if certain individual tasks seem to take away from it. Laborers in other occupations may find it harder to see the channel by which their labor may be made useful to God's glory, but (with the exception of inherently harmful work -- work that aims to degrade and damage the human person) there is some good to be harnessed in even the smallest and most menial tasks, if we can only put our hearts in the right place.

Today I'm going to eat when I need to, but I'm also going to try to do my work without complaint and without wasting time. This doesn't mean no online recreation, but it does mean I'm going to set a timer on it.

II. Never to fast through vanity but always through humility and charity, not in one's own way but in the ways prescribed and recommended, neither more nor less.

III. Do everything to please God alone, for his reasons, not trying to rationalize the reasons for them nor to improve on the prescriptions by substituting one's own.

Summary and conclusion in the name of the Blessed Trinity.

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I'm just going to pull out some quotes.

I.

"The first condition is that we must fast with our whole heart, that is to say, willingly, whole-heartedly, universally and entirely."

[St. Bernard] says that fasting was instituted by Our Lord as a remedy for our mouth... Since sin entered the world through the mouth, the mouth must do penance by being deprived of foods prohibited and forbidden by the Church...

But [he] adds that, as it is not our mouth alone which has sinned, but also all our other senses, our fast must be general and entire, that is, all the members of our body must fast. For if we have offended God through the eyes, through the ears, through the tongue, and through our other senses, why should we not make them fast as well? And not only must we make the bodily senses fast, but also the soul's powers and passions -- yes, even the understanding, the memory, and the will, since we have sinned through both body and spirit.

This seems fitting. We know that in the description from Genesis of the first sin, the act of eating is an outward and efficacious sign. It is the concrete act that enacts a deeper reality, a total interior act of self-will, rationalization, and disobedience, a suicide of the spirit. Because of the mythical language of the type of inspired story of Genesis, we can also take the small, singular act as a representation

The mere act of eating even a forbidden fruit in the absence of certain interior dispositions (such as knowledge of its forbiddenness, or total freedom to choose) would not enact such a reality.

And so it is for us: The act of fasting is an outward and efficacious sign of a kind of interior fasting, if and only if we have the appropriate interior dispositions. And it's all looking forward to a different act of eating that is itself an outward and efficacious sign -- the anti-apple, so to speak.

How to fast "universally and entirely?"

How many sins have entered into the soul through the eyes...? That is why they must fast by keeping them lowered and not permitting them to look upon frivolous and unlawful objects;

the ears, by depriving them of listening to vain talk...

the tongue, in not speaking idle words and those which savor of the world...

We ought also to cut off useless thoughts,

as well as vain memories

and superfluous appetites

and desiresof our will.

...In this way interior fasting accompanies exterior fasting.

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II.

"The second condition to be met is never to fast through vanity but always through humility."

A. To fast in charity is to fast in humility.

St. Francis first turns to the famous discourse on love ("charity") from 1 Corinthians 13 as a set of criteria here.

(I wish I would remember more often to run my actions and intentions through 1 Cor. 13 as a check on them. They are truly generally applicable, and so St. Francis freely asserts that they apply to Lenten fasting.)

St. Paul in the epistle that he wrote to the Corinthians... declared the conditions necessary for disposing ourselves to fast well during Lent. He says this to us: Lent is approaching. Prepare yourselves to fast with charity, for if your fast is performed without it, it will be vain and useless, since fasting, like all other good works, is not pleasing to God unless it is done in charity and through charity.

When you discipline yourself, when you say long prayers, if you have not charity, all that is nothing. Even though you should work miracles, if you have not charity, they will not profit you at all. Indeed, even if you should suffer martyrdom without charity, your martyrdom is worth nothing and would not be meritorious in the eyes of the Divine Majesty.

For all works, small or great, however good they may be in themselves, are of no value and profit us nothing if they are not done in charity and through charity.

... It is almost impossible to have charity without being humble and to be humble without having charity.... the one can never be without the other.

So, one check upon our humility is to look at the discourse in First Corinthians. Are we impatient? unkind? envious? boastful and proud? easily angered? etc.

B. "Now how can one fast through vanity?"

According to Scripture there are hundreds and hundreds of ways, but I will content myself with telling you one of them...

To fast through vanity is to fast through self-will... It is to fast as one wishes and not as others wish; to fast in the manner which pleases us, and not as we are ordered or counseled.

...On this matter... we find ourselves confronted with two groups of people.

Some do not wish to fast as much as they ought, and cannot be satisfied with the food permitted (this is what many worldly people still do today who allege a thousand reasons on this subject)...

The others... wish to fast more than is necessary. It is with these that we have more trouble.

We can easily and clearly show the first that... in not fasting as much as they should, while able to do it, they transgress the commandments of the Lord.

But we have more difficulty with the weak and infirm who are not strong enough for fasting. They will not listen to reason, nor can they be persuaded that they are not bound by it [the law of fasting], and despite all our reasons they insist on fasting more than is required... These people do not fast through humility, but through vanity. They do not recognize that... they would do much more for God in not fasting ... and using the food ordered them, than in wishing to abstain through self-will. For though, on account of their weakness, their mouth cannot abstain, they should make the other senses of the body fast, as well as the passions and powers of the soul.

Yes, I think we've seen that.

C. On the apparent contradiction between "let your fasting be done in secret"and the Church's practice of public penance, e.g., ashes.

This is always a necessary topic in an Ash Wednesday homily, isn't it? I like St. Francis's take on it:

Our Divine Master did not mean by this that we ought to have no care about the edification of the neighbor. Oh no, for St. Paul says [Phil. 4:5]: Let your modesty be known to all.

Those who fast during the holy season of Lent ought not to conceal it, since the Church orders this fast and wishes that everyone should know that we are observing it. We must not, then, deny this to those who expect it of us... since we are obliged to remove every cause of scandal to our brothers.

But when our Lord said: Fast in secret, He wanted us to understand: do not do it to be seen or esteemed... Be careful to edify them well, but not in order that they might esteem you as holy and virtuous. Do not be like the hypocrites. Do not try to appear better than others in practicing more fasting and penances than they.

St. Francis goes on to say, essentially, "By the way, don't talk to me about St. Paul the Hermit or St. Simon Stylites; they were acting by special inspiration and we're not supposed to imitate them." But we must move on to...

III. "The third condition necessary for fasting well is to look to God and do everything to please him..."

We must not make use of much learned discussion and discernment to understand why the fast is commanded, whether it is for all or only for some. Everyone knows that it was ordered in expiation for the sin of our first father, Adam... Many have difficulties on this subject... No one is ignorant that children are not bound to fast, nor are persons sixty years of age.

Lots of people are not satisfied by the simple idea that the fast is ordered in expiation for sins. This is too mystical for them and they bring in lots of other reasons which seem to them more rational. ("Solidarity with the poor," anyone? "Treading lightly on the earth" with environmentally friendly meatless Fridays?)

And lots of people, oddly enough, argue about who is and isn't supposed to fast. The church is clear on it. We don't have to make up our own rules just because we don't like the Church's. We shouldn't drop hints that healthy and robust 62-year-olds really would do better to fast, for example, laying a burden on someone they do not have to carry.

St. Francis gives three examples to back this up:

Adam and Eve discussing why it was okay to eat the fruit (Genesis 3:1-6);

Jesus's disciples who discussed and questioned the notion of His giving of His flesh and blood for them to eat and drink, and were rejected;

and an episode from the life of St. Pachonius in which the saint rebuked a cook for imposing extra discipline on some young religious, contrary to orders.

Conclusion

This is all that I had to tell you regarding fasting and what must be observed in order to fast well.

The first thing is that your fast should be entire and universal; that is, that you should make all the members of your body and all the powers of your soul fast:

keeping your eyes lowered, or at least lower than ordinarily;

keeping better silence, or at least keeping it more punctually than is usual;

mortifying the hearing and the tongue so that you will no longer hear or speak of anything vain or useless;

the understanding, in order to consider only holy and pious subjects;

the memory, in filling it with the remembrance of bitter and sorrowful things...

keeping your will in check and your spirit at the foot of the crucifix...

The second condition is that you do not observe your fast or perform your works for the eyes of others.

And the third is that you do all your actions, and consequently your fasting, to please God alone...

That, with the sign of the Cross, is the end of the sermon. It's simple and direct, and like most of what St. Francis de Sales writes, very practical.

The next sermon, which I think I will try to look at on Friday, is on the subject of temptation.

17 February 2015

I won't be giving up the Internet at all for Lent this year -- not Facebook, not Twitter, certainly not blogging. (Though as usual, I'll stay off it on Good Friday.) I can see myself setting a timer so I don't overdo it, but I'll still be here.

If anything, I might try to blog more. This little corner has been sadly neglected, and it's probably (for me personally) the most fruitful writing I do.

+ + +

There are twelve sermons in this book, and I am going to try to read them and blog them all, approximately on Wednesdays and Fridays, which should take me to Holy Week.

Today, without sneaking a peek ahead to the first Lenten sermon, I looked at the book's preface, written by Rev. John A. Abruzzese, S.T.D. Here are a few quotes from it. All emphasis is mine.

+ + +

"As a young priest and preacher St. Francis was consumed by a burning desire to proclaim the love of God to all people, regardless of social class or intellectual distinction. Therefore, he chose in preaching to adopt the homily as his style, long out of vogue in his day. From his experience in hearing the popular orators of Paris churches, St. Francis saw that if he were to be an effective preacher he would have to speak in a manner which the people could understand clearly, devoid of the accustomed elaborate rhetorical devices and seemingly endless Latin and Greek quotations."

+ + +

"In doing so, he risked his reputation and even prompted the following criticism from his father:

[Y]ou preach too often... In my day it was not so, preachings were much rarer; but what preachings...! They were erudite, well thought out; more Latin and Greek were quoted in one than you quote in ten; everyone was enraptured and edified; people used to go to sermons in crowds. Now you have made preaching so common, this will no longer happen and no one one will think very much of you!"

(Anybody catch a little whiff of "Your sermons are so popular that no one will want to listen to them?" Yogi Berra, pray for us!)

+ + +

St. Francis "reminded him [his own brother, also a bishop] of his duty and emphasized that preaching must be accessible to all:"

We must not be like those little trickles of water that spring from artificial rocks in the garden of great folk and to which one scarcely dares approach... To fulfill our office we must be like the great and open fountains from which water is taken in abundance, not only for men, but also, and even more frequently, by beasts -- everything, even snakes, having free use of it... We must never repulse anyone, even though our peace and comfort may have to suffer a little.

+ + +

"The charism of his personal holiness broke down all resistance... St. Francis stated it ... simply, 'To love well is sufficient for speaking well!'"

+ + +

...[T]he disposition of the hearer is equally essential in the 'heart to heart' communication on which St. Francis based his preaching... According to an incident which is said to have taken place during the Lenten series preached at Annecy:

The Saint had the habit of pausing at the beginning of a sermon and looking across the assembly ranged before him for a few silent moments. A member of the cathedral chapter ventured to ask him what his silence signified. "I salute the guardian angel of each one of my audience," he answered, "and I beg him to make the heart under his care ready for my words. Very great favors have come to me by this means."

+ + +

It has always been controversial, the question of which is the better preaching and teaching style: the learned, or the populist.

I am of the mind that the style must be adapted to the audience, or conversely, that if we have evidence that the speaker or writer is competent, that we may judge who is the audience by considering the chosen style.

A populist, simple way of speaking, however, intended to reach everyone, is at its most effective when the speaker is in fact quite personally erudite, personally holy, personally learned. He has more fruits to pick from in his quest to offer the juiciest morsels to the hungry crowd; a deeper well to draw from, the better to give the masses of thirsty to drink.

St. Francis de Sales, according to this book's introduction, is a patron saint of writers and journalists, as well as of the Catholic press.

I think he makes a fine patron saint for Catholic bloggers as well, and a decent one for those whose task is to educate the young. We ever have to gather up a complicated, sprawling, reality, part the tangled mat of fibers in order to display that which is essential, in words that can be understood by everyone; and yet, not pretend that the simple essentials are all that is, but remain true to the complications.

+ + +

But the point is well taken: "Heart speaks to heart," says St. Francis, and that means that it takes two hearts for a connection to be made. The speaker cannot take full responsibility for the hearer. Yes, the speaker has a responsibility to be as clear as possible, and speak in a language that the hearer is capable of understanding. But none of us can force another's heart, it isn't possible; there is always a will; and the hearer may choose to hear or to not hear.

There is such a tendency to blame the messenger, or at least the messenger's style. But the hearer has control over the channel too -- if not over his own intellect, or his language, he does have command of his attention, his capacity to ask questions, his capacity of reflection and self-examination.

+ + +

Come on along and we'll see together what this Francis, that scandalously simple preacher, has to say to us.

12 January 2015

Having time for just a quick post this morning, I thought I'd return to my series on the very practical body of Salesian spirituality, in particular, St. Francis de Sales's Spiritual Directory. There's a quite short, but useful, bit in it that I want to highlight.

I had just gotten started on the series about the Salesians before our family's month in Europe, and then I started trip-blogging and lost the thread. Here's a quick recap of the series:

Salesian spirituality: Four examples. Why Salesian spirituality resonates with me; introductions to St. Francis de Sales, to St. Jane Francis de Chantal, to St. John "Don" Bosco, and to Elisabeth Leseur.

In the second post up there, the bit about "to-do lists," I dug down into the Spiritual Directory:

It's sort of a rule of life for the religious he supervised -- only instead of specifying so mant hours of work, so many of sleep, so many of prayer, etc., he specifies little acts of devotion and intention to be performed throughout the day, connected to rising, worship, work, meals, bedtime -- the whole cycle of an ordinary day. They are, so to speak, spiritual exercises, not for a novena or a retreat but for every day.

"It is true that the Directory proposes many exercises," Francis writes,

"Yet it is good and fitting to keep one's interior orderly and busy in the beginning. When, however, after a period of time, persons have put into practice somewhat this multiplicity of interior actions, have become formed and habituated to them and spiritually agile in their use, then the practices should coalesce into a single exercise of greater simplicity, either into a love of complacency, or a love of benevolence, or a love of confidence, or of union and reunion of the heart to the will of God. This multiplicity thus becomes unity."

I like this idea of patiently developing little habits that "coalesce" over time into character.

I went on in that post to describe Article 2, "Meditation," which is the bit about making your to-do list -- okay, Francis doesn't call it that, he calls it "the exercise of the preparation of the day."

There are other articles: how to enter into the praying of the hours, notes for how to properly prepare themselves interiorly for Mass, examination of conscience, meals and recreation, night prayer, and so on. But it's not neatly organized, and tucked into Article 1 with "Rising" is a little bit called "Direction of Intention" that I think exemplifies what he is trying to get at in the introduction, about making each day a single exercise of greater simplicity. Because it has to do with sanctifying every action of the day.

Here's how it goes, with paragraph breaks added by me for emphasis.

They who wish to thrive and advance in the way of Our Lord should,

at the beginning of their actions, both exterior and interior,

ask for his grace

and offer to his divine Goodness all the good they will do.

+ + +

In this way they will be prepared to bear

with peace and serenity

all the pain and suffering they will encounter

as coming from the fatherly hand of our good God and Savior.

His most holy intention is to have them merit by such means

in order to reward them afterwards out of the abundance of his love.

+ + +

They should not neglect this practice in matters which are small and seemingly insignificant,

nor even if they are engaged in those things which are agreeable and in complete conformity with their own will and needs,

such as drinking, eating, resting, recreating and similar actions.

By following the advice of the Apostle, everything they do will be done in God’s name to please him alone.

+ + +

I think "the advice of the Apostle" refers to Paul's letter to the Colossians, cf. Col 3:17, or possibly First Corinthians, cf. 1 Cor 10:31, but could also be a general description of Paul's advice.

+ + +

So, I guess this is the gist of the direction of intention:

You're about to do something -- anything.

(Really, anything. Start your work, start your coffeemaker, wake the children, change a diaper, eat a sandwich, begin a blog post, take a nap, walk up to receive the Eucharist, make that phone call you've been putting off all day, go to bed with your spouse, step on the treadmill, meet a friend for drinks. Anything. Something you're looking forward to or something you're dreading. It doesn't matter. Anything.)

Do this (quickly, silently, or it will never do for all your actions):

-- Ask God for grace

-- Offer God all the good that comes of it

-- Try to intend in the doing of your action what God intends: That you may gain merit through patiently bearing any and all suffering (however minor!) that comes via that action.

+ + +

The whole rest of the Spiritual Directory is this advice writ larger and more specific. The exercise of the preparation of the day is a longer and more formal way to ask God for help and to offer God all your intentions. The exercise upon rising is an offering of all affections and resolutions, and asking God for help and blessing. So is the exercise before the divine office. St. Francis suggests a variety of meditations and prayers for the variety of "checkpoints" in the day, but they all boil down to asking for help, offering God the good one does, and uniting one's will to God's will -- that is, to his will specifically for you and your benefit, which should be an easy exercise even to those who are used to doing things for their own will alone.

+ + +

The direction of intention "before all your actions" is the stuff for which the little prayers called "ejaculatory prayers" have been invented. I imagine that each person could easily set down their own version. As for me, I am fond of taking these two bits from Psalm 69/70:

O God, come to my assistance... Let all that seek you rejoice and be glad in you.

An alternative formula from the same psalm could be,

Let all that seek you rejoice... You are my help and my deliverer.

Or you could use "the advice of the Apostle" (1 Cor 10:31) as an ejaculatory prayer:

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

It's up to you. The point is to form the intention. Whatever you can come up with that will quickly orient the mind and heart will do. Maybe put it up on a sticky note in the places where you tend to do things, and see if you can turn it into a habit.

02 September 2014

I get the impression from other people that the idea alarms them, because it sounds a lot like "avoiding discipline;" perhaps it calls to mind the stories of parents who insist their offspring can do no wrong. You know, the kind who sue the school when their child is suspended for cheating on a test or something like that.

That's not my point. By punishment, I mean those arbitrary unpleasantnesses inflicted in return for misbehavior: the spanking, the grounding, the confiscation. Mrk and I aren't what you'd call permissive parents. We try to be authoritative, if not authoritarian. We use the term "obedience" with the kids and are clear about what it means and why it's important. But (this is our ideal, mind you, not always the way we manage to make it work) we try not to get to the point where we need a "punishment" in the first place.

We try to let them experience the consequences of their actions, insofar as it isn't dangerous.

Didn't pack an extra dress like you were supposed to? Well, I guess you'll be wet and uncomfortable now that you've run through your friend's sprinkler in your clothes.

Refused to eat your lunch at lunchtime? Ooooops, snack time isn't till 3:30, I guess you can have some of these plain almonds I keep in the car for emergencies.

Shrieked at each other in the car while we were running errands? After all that, I (honestly) don't feel anymore like taking you out for lunch, so instead we're going home and having tuna sandwiches.

On the occasion when something truly egregious happens -- such as when one of my kids came to me and admitted that a long string of perfect scores on math assignments had been faked -- consequences are meted out rather than merely allowed to happen; but we really try to have it make sense. In the case of the spurious perfect scores, since I had no way to know whether the child understood the material, the child was assigned double math lessons for as many days as the lessons had been faked, each day doing the regularly scheduled lesson and at the same time re-doing one of the lessons from before. That plus a long conversation about honesty. And dangerous misuse of a tool around here is very likely to result in revocation of privileges to use said tool until competency and proper respect for risk is demonstrated; that's just common sense, not a punishment.

It was difficult for us to figure out when our first was very young, but we hit our stride eventually, and he grew out of the normal frustrations of toddlerhood into an earnest child and now a delightful teenager, and that has given us a lot of confidence as we continue to bring him up, him and the four that have followed. It's true that I yell more than I wish I did, and lose my temper. It's an ideal I fail to measure up to. But I still strive for that "no-punishment" ideal.

+ + +

I notice, however, that this isn't language I tend to hear from my fellow Catholic parents much. Indeed, at more than one parish I've seethed while listening to a priest (including in the homily at my daughter's baptism) cheerfully recommend vigorously and frequently spanking small children.

I think this is an American Catholic phenomenon, borne of being caught between a decadent permissive culture and an army of evangelical Protestants -- in many ways, serious American Catholics are constantly playing "keeping up with the Bob Joneses," and so, for better or for worse, we have been inculturated with what I personally see as a break-the-child's-sinful-will, thou-shalt-honor-us-because-of-the-ten-commandments sort of attitude toward child discipline.

The exceptions are the super-crunchy attachment parenting Catholics. Am I one of those? Sort of; as a young parent, AP wasn't good enough for me and if you were foolish enough to ask me about it I would talk your ear off about how I was into "CC" parenting, which stands for "continuum concept," which, well, some other time....

I did have plenty of role models for the way that I felt was right for me to parent my kids, but I lacked Catholic ones. And that's why I was so excited when I first learned about the educational philosophy of St. John Bosco. AKA "Don" Bosco (1815-1888) because that's what you call a diocesan priest in Italy. Here's Wikipedia on him, for some background:

At that time the city of Turin had a population of 117,000 inhabitants. It reflected the effects of industrialization and urbanization: numerous poor families lived in the slums of the city, having come from the countryside in search of a better life. In visiting the prisons Don Bosco was disturbed to see so many boys from 12 to 18 years of age. He was determined to find a means to prevent them ending up here. Because of population growth and migration to the city, Bosco found the traditional methods of parish ministry inefficient. He decided it was necessary to try another form of apostolate, and he began to meet the boys where they worked and gathered in shops, offices, market places. They were pavers, stone-cutters, masons, plasterers who came from far away places, he recalled in his brief Memoirs.

The Oratorio was not simply a charitable institution, and its activities were not limited to Sundays. For Don Bosco it became his permanent occupation. He looked for jobs for the unemployed. Some of the boys did not have sleeping quarters and slept under bridges or in bleak public dormitories. Twice he tried to provide lodgings in his house. The first time they stole the blankets; the second they emptied the hay-loft. He did not give up. In May 1847, he gave shelter to a young boy from Valesia, in one of the three rooms he was renting in the slums of Valdocco, where he was living with his mother. He and "Mamma Margherita" began taking in orphans. The boys sheltered by Don Bosco numbered 36 in 1852, 115 in 1854, 470 in 1860 and 600 in 1861, 800 being the maximum some time later....

In 1859, Bosco selected the experienced priest Vittorio Alasonatti, 15 seminarians and one high school boy and formed them into the "Society of St. Francis de Sales." This was the nucleus of the Salesians, the religious order that would carry on his work....In 1871, he founded a group of religious sisters to do for girls what the Salesians were doing for boys. They were called the "Daughters of Mary Help of Christians." In 1874, he founded yet another group, the "Salesian Cooperators." These were mostly lay people who would work for young people like the Daughters and the Salesians, but would not join a religious order.

Bosco's capability to attract numerous boys and adult helpers was connected to his "Preventive System of Education."

Don Bosco explained his "preventive system" in an essay, "The Preventive System in the Education of the Young," which can be found here. It begins by contrasting his "preventive" system with the "repressive" system. The "repressive" system, he says, has its place "in the army and in general among adults and the judicious, who ought of themselves to know and remember what the law and its regulations demand."

The repressive system consists in making the law known to the subjects and afterwards watching to discover the transgressors of these laws, and inflicting, when necessary, the punishment deserved.

According to this system, the words and looks of the superior must always be severe and even threatening, and he must avoid all familiarity with his dependents.

In order to give weight to his authority the Rector must rarely be found among his subjects and as a rule only when it is a question of punishing or threatening.

But Don Bosco's system is different:

[The preventive system] consists in making the laws and regulations of an institute known, and then watching carefully so that the pupils may at all times be under the vigilant eye of the rector or the assistants, who like loving fathers can converse with them, take the lead in every movement and in a kindly way give advice and correction; in other words, this system places the pupils in the impossibility of committing faults.

This system is based entirely on reason and religion, and above all on kindness; therefore it excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement.

"Excludes all violent punishment, and tries to do without even the slightest chastisement" being what I was going for all along, I was so glad to find this.

The basic idea is that children are closely supervised at all times by leaders who care for them, model good behavior, encourage reception of the sacraments, participate in their games, and converse with them frequently about behavior norms in a way that "appeals to [their] reason" and "generally enlists [their] accord." Close supervision and "forewarning" means that there is little chance for a child to commit a fault. Don Bosco believes that young people misbehave, initially at least, because of inattention, not malice:

The primary reason for this system is the thoughtlessness of the young, who in one moment forget the rules of discipline and the penalties for their infringement. Consequently, a child often becomes culpable and deserving of punishment, which he had not even thought about, and which he had quite forgotten when heedlessly committing the fault which he would certainly have avoided, had a friendly voice warned him.

To apply this system Don Bosco lists several principles of education and discipline.

1. Close supervision by the people entrusted with the children. "[The Rector] must always be with his pupils whenever they are not engaged in some occupation, unless they are already being properly supervised by others."

2. Moral teachers who actively lead the pupils to and in each new place or activity. "Teachers, craftmasters, and assistants must be of acknowledged morality... As far as possible the assistants ought to precede the boys to the place where they assemble; they should remain with them until others come to take their place, and never leave the pupils unoccupied."

3. Allow rowdiness and physical activity. "Let the boys have full liberty to jump, run, and make as much noise as they please. Gymnastics, music, theatricals, and outings are most efficacious means of obtaining discipline and of benefiting spiritual and bodily health. Let care be taken however that the games... are not reprehensible. 'Do anything you like,' the great friend of youth, St. Philip [Neri] used to say, 'as long as you do not sin.'"

4. Encourage and promote, don't force, the sacraments. "Frequent confession and communion and daily mass are the pillars which must support the edifice of education, from which we propose to banish the use of threats and the cane. Never force the boys to frequent the sacraments, but encourage them to do so, and give them every opportunity.... [L]et the beauty, grandeur, and holiness of the Catholic religion be dwelt on..."

"Avoid as a plague the opinion that the first communion should be deferred to a late age... When a child can distinguish between Bread and bread, and shows sufficient knowledge, give no further thought to his age... St. Philip Neri counseled weekly and even more frequent communion."

5. Exclude bad materials and trouble-making people. "[P]revent bad books, bad companions, or persons who indulge in improper conversations from entering the college. A good door keeper is a treasure for a house of education."

6. Brief daily reflections -- a sort of community examen."Every evening after night prayers before the boys go to rest, the Rector or someone in his stead shall address them briefly, giving them advice or counsel concerning what is to be done or... avoided. Let him try to draw some moral reflection from events that have happened during the day... but his words should never take more than two or three minutes."

7. Love before fear. "An educator should seek to win the love of his pupils if he wishes to inspire fear in them. When he succeeds in doing this, the withholding of some token of kindness is a punishment which stimulates emulation, gives courage, and never degrades.... With the young, punishment is whatever is meant as a punishment.... in the case of some boys a reproachful look is more effective than a slap in the face would be."

8. Do not shame children. "Except in very rare cases, corrections and punishments should never be given publicly, but always privately and in the absence of companions."

9. Employ patient reason and religion. "[T]he greatest prudence and patience should be used to bring the pupil to see his fauly, with the aid of reason and religion."

10. No corporal punishment. "To strike a boy in any way, to make him kneel in a painful position, to pull his ears, and other similar punishments, must be absolutely avoided, because the law forbids them, and because they greatly irritate the boys and degrade the educator."

11. Clear communication of expectations. "The Rector shall make sure that the disciplinary measures, including rules and punishments, are known to the pupils, so that no one can make the excuse that he did not know what was commanded or forbidden."

+ + +

I think these principles of Salesian education and discipline are sound ones that speak for themselves, principles that seek to form and transform human nature rather than to fight against it, and principles that respect and elevate the dignity of both child and educator. When I discovered Don Bosco I felt I'd finally found someone who was truly on my side.

If only I'd known about him when I was having to make post-baptism chitchat with Father Spare-the-Rod!

But I changed my mind, because I happened to be looking at a short work of St. Francis de Sales, the Spiritual Directory.It's sort of a rule of life for the religious he supervised -- only instead of specifying so mant hours of work, so many of sleep, so many of prayer, etc., he specifies little acts of devotion and intention to be performed throughout the day, connected to rising, worship, work, meals, bedtime -- the whole cycle of an ordinary day. They are, so to speak, spiritual exercises, not for a novena or a retreat but for every day.

"It is true that the Directory proposes many exercises," Francis writes,

Yet it is good and fitting to keep one's interior orderly and busy in the beginning. When, however, after a period of time, persons have put into practice somewhat this multiplicity of interior actions, have become formed and habituated to them and spiritually agile in their use, then the practices should coalesce into a single exercise of greater simplicity, either into a love of complacency, or a love of benevolence, or a love of confidence, or of union and reunion of the heart to the will of God. This multiplicity thus becomes unity.

I like this idea of patiently developing little habits that "coalesce" over time into character.

+ + +

The ordinary thing for me to do would be to start where Francis starts, at the beginning of the day, with "Article #1: Rising."

But I was struck instead by Article #2, "Meditation." Or rather, preparation for meditation.

Francis devotes only a short paragraph to instruction on meditation, "the serious practice of [which] is one of the most important of the religious life." Mainly he suggests going to other sources, including his own other works. But he devotes several paragraphs of this article to the preparation.

To form themselves for meditation they will prefer to all other means the exercise of the preparation of the day....By this means they will endeavor to be disposed to carry out their activities competently and commendably.

Invocation. They will invoke the help of God, saying,

"Lord, if you do not care for my soul, it is useless that another should do so." (Ps 127:1)

They will ask him to make them worthy to spend the day with him without offending him. For this purpose, the words of the psalm may be helpful,

"Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your good spirit will guide me by the hand on level ground, and your divine majesty by its inexpressible love and boundless charity will give me true life."

Foresight. This is simply a preview or conjecture of all that could happen during the course of the day. Thus, with the grace of Our Lord, they will wisely and prudently anticipate occasions which could take them by surprise.

Plan of Action. They will carefully plan and seek out the best means to avoid any faults. They will also arrange, in an orderly fashion, what, in their opinion, is proper for them to do.

Resolution. They will make a firm resolution to obey the will of God, especially during the present day. To this end, they will use the words of the royal prophet David, "My soul, will you not cheerfully obey the holy will of God, seeing that your salvation comes from his?"

Surely this God of infinite majesty and admittedly worthy of every honor and service can only be neglected by us through lack of courage. Let us, therefore, be consoled and strengthened by this beautiful verse of the psalmist:

"Let evil man do their worst against me. The Lord, the king, can overcome them all. Let the world complain about me to its heart's content. This means little to me because he who holds sway over all the angelic spirits is my protector." (Ps. 99:1)

Recommendation.They will entrust themselves and all their concerns into the hands of God's eternal goodness and ask him to consider them as always so commended. Leaving to him the complete care of what they are and what he wants them to be, they will say with all their heart:

"I have asked you one thing, O Jesus, my Lord, and I shall ask you again and again, namely that I may faithfully carry out your loving will all the day of my poor and pitiable life." (Ps 27:4; 40:9)

St. Francis has just unified the concepts of "the morning offering" and "the to-do list."

+ + +

Before meditation, in fact as part of the preparation for meditation, St. Francis prescribes thinking about all the things that you expect to encounter during the day, anticipate difficulties, carefully plan (with an eye towards avoiding faults -- I tend to skip that step when making to-do lists), then "arrange in an orderly fashion what ... is proper... to do."

Did you catch those last two words?

You finish up your orderly-arranged to-do list with two more steps I commonly skip: resolving to obey the will of God, and entrusting yourself, with all your "concerns" (including, we are to assume, all the items on your aforementioned to-do list), into God's hands.

It turns out that you don't have to try hard to push back the items that are rushing at you and demanding your attention while you are trying to make your morning offering.

It turns out that you don't have to guiltily say to yourself, "I'll do my morning offering as soon as I write my to-do list."

It turns out that you've been a bit silly, trying to add "Say Morning Offering" to the top of the to-do list.

St. Francis suggests that the to-do list can itself be the morning offering. He sanctifies it: embedding it in an exercise of invoking God's help, planning tasks with an eye to avoiding faults, resolving to do God's will, and ultimately entrusting the outcome to God's providence.

And this is a perfect example of why St. Francis draws me. I am used to being made to feel, oh, I don't know, insufficiently go-with-the-flowish, insufficiently trusting of God; that my desire for order and efficiency is somehow a marker of a lack of love. That I should want to run to God in prayer more than I should want to make an Action Plan, and that my itchiness until All The Things are safely written down, that itchiness which so interferes with making prayer my first act of the day, is a sign of weakness and a thorn in the flesh.

What's this? Rather than putting holiness on my to-do list, I can make my to-do list holy. This is a spiritual exercise I can roll up my sleeves and tackle, true multitasking: setting out my daily plans, right there, on the altar of offering.

20 June 2014

I finished writing my assignment on Augustine for the beginning of the 9th-grade evolutionary biology course my son will be taking next year. I thought I'd share it freely here, in case any other homeschoolers are interested in using classical authors to put modern science into long-term perspective.

Suggestions are welcome as I won't be assigning it till fall 2014.

+ + +

Augustine lived from 354 to 430 A. D. and was one of the most influential early theologians of the Church.

Page numbers refer to readings from The Literal Meaning of Genesis, appearing in the volume On Genesis, ed. by John E. Rotelle, trans. by Edmund Hill, New City Press, 2002.

---

1. Read Book I, no. 1 (p. 168) for an introductory idea of the multiple meanings of Scripture. List the different kinds of meaning that Augustine thinks Scripture can have.

2. Skim over nos 2-28 (pp. 168-181) to get a flavor of the way Augustine lists questions to establish the difficulty of interpreting Genesis. Dip in here and there and read paragraphs in more detail. Give three examples of problematic questions Augustine mentions.

3. Read closely no. 29-30 (p. 181-182). Why does Augustine believe that it is necessary to list the parts of creation in a certain order? Why does Augustine believe that the scripture uses the words “earth” and “waters” to represent formlessness?

4. Skip ahead to Book II, no. 25 (p. 205), about the creation of plants. Why does Augustine say plants are described as a separate creation from that of the land, but on the same “day” as the creation of land?

5. Read the episode in Book III, par. 12 (pp. 222-223), in which Augustine refutes someone's scriptural interpretation (that a certain language is used of fishes because fishes lack any kind of memory) by pointing out that direct scientific observation of fish contradicts such an interpretation.

What does this episode demonstrate that Augustine believes about the relationship between the interpretation of truth as revealed in Scripture and facts that are learned by observation of the natural world?

6. Read nos. 18-19 (pp. 227-228). (It may help you understand if you begin at par. 16 on page 225.)

Pay particular attention to this:

The reader may also wonder...whether the phrase 'according to kind' comes up again and again just by chance... or whether there is some meaning in it, as though they were already in existence beforehand, though the account of their creation is only now being given... In fact this expression begins to be used about the grasses and the trees, and so on until we get to these terrestrial animals... Is it because these things sprang into being in such a way that others would be born of them and in succeeding to them would preserve the shape and form of their origin?...

This then is the significance of 'according to kind,' where we are to understand both the efficacious force in the seed and the likeness of succeeding generations to their predecessors, because none of them was created just to exist once and for all by itself, whether to continue for ever, or to pass away without none to succeed it.

Does the above passage refer to the possibility of God creating animals that would then produce new ones of the same kind, or does it refer to the possibility of God creating animals that would eventually give rise to animals of different kinds?

7. Read no.s 22-23 (pp. 229-230). Augustine subscribes to the then-current scientific theory of “spontaneous generation,” i.e., that maggots and flies spontaneously come to life in rotting meat. (Never mind for the moment that moderns know the maggots are not spontaneously generated, but come from eggs which are laid in the meat by insects.) What philosophical problem does Augustine say the theory of spontaneous generation creates for those who study creation?

Augustine's answer is phrased as follows: “...possibly there was some natural tendency in all animated bodies, so that they already had seeded and threaded into them beforehand, as it were, the first beginnings of the future animalcules, which were going to arise.” How might we apply this same principle, based on a now-outdated scientific theory, to the more current idea of biological evolution?

8. Read par. 30 (p. 234). What does Augustine say is the defining aspect of humankind, the aspect in which man is made “in the image of God?”

Do you think that the distinctive characteristic of humanness is something we can measure with current technology? Why or why not?

9. Read Book V, no. 12 (p. 282). Does Augustine argue that the act of creation is a single act, or a series of acts? Was there a time before the beginning of the universe, according to Augustine? Tell what you know about what cosmology, a modern branch of physics, says about this question.

10. Read Book V, no. 41 (p. 297; note that it is two paragraphs long). Can this philosophy be said to admit the possibility of biological evolution?

11. Optional: If you are interested in Augustine's mathematical interpretation of why there are six days of creation and not some other number, see Book IV, beginning on page 241.

19 June 2014

Today I cracked open St. Augustine's On The Literal Meaning of Genesis in order to find bits for my ninth-grader's evolutionary biology course.

I plan to begin the course with some cultural and social context for evolutionary theory, and I was irritated to discover that the summary in the college textbooks went straight from Plato's and Aristotle's ideas to "Later, Christians interpreted the biblical account of Genesis literally and concluded that each species had been created individually by God in the same form it has today." I've been familiar with the idea that Augustine's philosophies allowed for evolutionary development for a long time (since reading the sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz, I think!) , so I set about going to the source.

The first 22 paragraphs or so should cure anyone of the notion that asking probing questions about the logical contradictions in Genesis is a modern phenomenon. Augustine lists many such questions. For example:

So why was the sun made with authority over the day to give light upon the earth if that light which had also been called 'day' had been sufficient for the making of the day? Or was that earlier light illuminating higher regions far from the earth so that it could not be perceived on earth, and thus it was necessary for the sun to be made? ... It can scarcely be supposed, after all, that it was put out so that nocturnal darkness might follow, and then lit again so that morning might be made, before the sun took on this task.

Augustine says that the six-day structure and series of creative events that are described in Genesis has a literary and pedigogical, not a historical, purpose:

It is not because formless matter is prior in time to things formed from it, since they are both created simultaneously together... but because that which something is made out of is still prior at its source, even if not in time, to what is made from it, that scripture could divide in the time it takes to state them what God did not divide in the time it took to make them.

...Since both [matter and form] had to be mentioned by scripture and both could not be mentioned simultaneously, can anyone doubt that what something was made out of had to be mentioned before what was made out of it?

... If two things cannot be named simultaneously, how much less can their stories be told simultaneously! So then, there can be no doubt at all that this formless basic material, almost the same as nothingness though it be, was still made by none but God, and was simultaneously created with the things that were formed from it.

The particular choice of which things are created on which days is not to establish order in a sense of a timeline, but order in a sense of classification. For example, why plants are included on the third day:

Here we should note the skillful touch of the one who put the text into shape; because grasses and trees are sorts of creatures quite distinct from the specific form of the lands and the waters... they are spoken of separately as coming from the earth... it is also separately indicated that God saw that it was good.

But all the same, because being fixed there by their roots they are continuous with the soil of the earth and entwined in it, he wished these things as well to belong to the same day.

He also goes on to explain, for example, that the creation of sun, moon, and stars is described as following the creation of land and plants because "fixed" things come before "moving" things in the logical structure.

I got the impression as I read that just as Augustine would disapprove of insisting on a six-day creation, he would disapprove of insisting that the scripture "got the science right" with respect to, e.g., light coming first, water-animals preceding land-animals, and so forth. Trying to put together some sort of "Genesis Code' that matches what we observe about the early days of Earth and the life on it, point by point, with the events of the six days of creation, would be missing the point entirely.

Nevertheless, Augustine spends a great deal of time talking about natural philosophy as it existed in his time and as it was handed down from earlier times. He is interested in setting up a correspondence in the sense of dialogue between the two bodies of knowledge.

For example, here's a place where he essentially says to an interlocutor, "Your scriptural interpretation is invalid, and you wouldn't make that mistake if you knew more science":

Some people...have expressed the opinion that the reason fishes are not called [in Genesis] 'live souls' but 'reptiles of live souls' is that they lack any kind of memory or form of life even remotely approaching rationality. But this opinion comes simply from insufficient experience, because there are authors who have described many wonderful things that they have been able to observe in fish-ponds... It is still absolutely certain that fishes have memory. This is something I have myself experienced, and anyone who wants to can experience it too.

There is, you see, a large fountain in the district of Bulla that is chock-full of fish. People are habitually looking down into it and throwing in things which the fish will rush at together to grab first, or fight among themselves to tear them to bits. Being now used to this kind of feeding, whenever people stroll round the rim of the fountain, the fish too will swim back and forth with them in a shoal, waiting for those whose presence they are aware of to throw something in.

From what I can tell, it sounds like some naturalists of Augustine's day said that Genesis was obviously boneheaded because it said "Let the waters produce" (besides crawling things) "flying things," when everyone knew that birds are clearly of the airy element, or perhaps of the earthy element. He spends some time, therefore, pointing out logical inconsistencies in his day's settled science:

If the reason they give [for fish being watery and birds being earthy] ... is that fishes do not have feet, then it means seals do not belong to the water, nor serpents or snails to the land or earth... As for dragons, which lack feet, they are said to take their rest in caves and to soar up into the air. While these are not too easy to come across, this kind of animated creature is for all that definitely mentioned not only in [scripture] but also in that of the [pagan Greek and Latin legends].

(I liked the bit about dragons not being too easy to come across. It's like he's saying he's never personally observed the effect but it has been attested to in the literature.)

He finds particular significance in the repeated phrase "according to kind":

The reader may also wonder...whether the phrase 'according to kind' comes up again and again just by chance... or whether there is some meaning in it, as though they were already in existence beforehand, though the account of their creation is only now being given... In fact this expression begins to be used about the grasses and the trees, and so on until we get to these terrestrial animals... Is it because these things sprang into being in such a way that others would be born of them and in succeeding to them would preserve the shape and form of their origin?...

This then is the significance of 'according to kind,' where we are to understand both the efficacious force in the seed and the likeness of succeeding generations to their predecessors, because none of them was created just to exist once and for all by itself, whether to continue for ever, or to pass away without none to succeed it.

This doesn't actually talk about evolution, of course, but of the generations of animals producing offspring of the same kind. Still, it sets the stage for Augustine to talk about the arising of animals which were not present in the beginning and which can be observed in his time by the best natural scientists available...

...and no, we're not talking of evolution, but spontaneous generation! Augustine subscribes to the then-current scientific belief that maggots and such are spontaneously generated in rotting meat, and for completeness explains how they could then have been created in the original establishment of things.

As for [those tiny creatures] that are generated from the bodies of animals, especially dead ones, it wold be quite ridiculous to say that they were created at the same time as the animals themselves were, unless possibly there was some natural tendency in all animated bodies... as it were, the first beginnings of the future animalcules, which were going to arise... all things being put in motion without any change in him by the creator.

Note that bit about God having created the "natural tendency in all animated bodies... the first beginnings of the future animals which were going to arise."

As I read through this, I can hear in my head the voice of innumerable adolescents and overgrown adolescents, and possibly some esteemed biologist-authors as well, challenging, "Oh yeah? Well if your religion can co-exist with science then how come it says the earth was created before the stars then?" and thinking they were the first ever to come up with such a wise and brilliant argument. It's partly to head this sort of thing off at its source that I want my kids to read classical Christian authors, even in bits and pieces.

A great deal of thought (as well as contemplation of observations from the natural world) went into ancient metaphysics, and that it's simply not true that Christians before Darwin uniformly believed in a young earth and a literal six-day creation.

In Book V, Augustine argues that the act of creation of everything material (including time) had to have been a single instantaneous act rather than a series of acts:

Creatures [including inanimate objects] once made began to run with their movements along the tracks of time, which means it is pointless to look for times before any creature, as though times could be found before times....

So it is time that begins from the creation rather than the creation from time, while both are from God...

Nor should the statement that time begins from the creation be taken to imply that time is not a creature...

Accordingly when we reflect upon the first establishment of creatures in the works of God from which he rested on the seventh day, we should not think either of those days as being like these ones governed by the sun, nor of that working as resembling the way God now works in time;

but we should reflect rather upon the work from which times began, the work of making all things at once, simultaneously, and also endowing them with an order that is not set by intervals of time but by the linking of causes, so that the things that were made simultaneously might also be brought to perfection by the sixfold representation of the day."

BAM.

And people think this is a *modern* idea, because Stephen Hawking, or something.

Once we get to the particular creation of man, things continue to get interesting:

After saying 'to our image,' he immediately added, 'and let him have authority over the fishes [etc.],' giving us to understand that it was in the very factor in which he surpasses non-rational animate beings that man was made to God's image. That, of course, is reason itself, or mind or intelligence... it was not in the features of the body but in a certain form of the illuminated mind."

From this I get: "Man" cannot said to have been "created" until we are talking about rational man. Man with a certain form of the illuminated mind. And it isn't clear that we would be able to discern which fossils would have come from organisms who possessed that "certain form."

It seems to me that we don't have to understand precisely what the distinction is between the mind of a human and the brain-processes of other animals. Without that, we can still accept that scripture is telling us that there is some distinction, possibly unmeasurable, some illumination that belongs properly to humans but not to nonhuman animals, and that illumination is what is meant by "in the image of God."

I think we run off the rails by trying to force that distinctive characteristic of human-ness to be described by only what we can measure with our current technology. Augustine's writing records a time when people were wasting a lot of brain power either trying to get the scriptures to match up with earth/air/water/fire concepts of matter, or trying to use those concepts to refute scripture.

Augustine says that the "seventh day" is the division between "how God worked then" and "how God is still working." "How God is working now" includes, then, all the eons of work between the act of creation and the present day. God doesn't "create through evolution." He created; now, creation evolves, as long as he works in it.

"Let us believe, or if we are able to, let us even understand that God is working until now in such a way that if his working were to be withheld from the things he has set up, they would simply collapse...

"If we suppose that he now sets any creature in place in such a way that he did not insert the kind of thing it is into that first construction of his, we are openly contradicting what scripture says, that he finished and completed all his works on the sixth day. Yes, within the categories of the various kinds of thing which he set up at first, he manifestly makes many new things which he did not make then. But he cannot rightly be thought to set up any new kind, since he did then complete them all.

And so by his hidden power he sets the whole of his creation in motion, and while it is whirled around with that movement, while angels carry out his orders, while the constellations circle round their courses, while the winds change, while the abyss of waters is stirred by tides and agitated by cyclones and waterspouts even through the air, while green things pullulate and evolve their own seeds, while animals are produced and lead their various lives, each kind according to its bent, while the wicked are permitted to vex the just, he unwinds the ages which he had as it were folded into the universe when it was first set up. These, however would not go on being unwound along their tracks, if the one who set them going stopped moving them on by his provident regulation."

I posted much of this on Facebook, and along the way snagged a couple of recommendations for future reading:

Amy Welborn suggested In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of Creation and the Fall by Pope Benedict I né Joseph Ratzinger.

Melanie suggested The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers.

I don't know if I'll get to them in time to put them in my course, but they do sound like good suggestions. The Ratzinger book probably would have saved me a lot of time had I known about it before I started...